Lyons can't afford to fund all repairs from St. Vrain River flooding

Legislators tour St. Vrain Valley to see damage first-hand

While visiting Lyons on Monday, state Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, Sen. Matt Jones, D-Louisville, and Rep. Matt Foote, D-Lafayette, listen to Lyons town administrator Victoria Simonsen discuss the effects the flooding and subsequent evacuation had on the town. (Matthew Jonas/Times-Call)

LONGMONT -- Lyons has at least $50 million worth of flood damage. It doesn't have $50 million.

The good news is that once federal and state aid come through, the town should only have to worry about finding $6.25 million in matching funds. The bad news? It doesn't have that, either.

"If we emptied out every penny in our reserves, it would come to $4 million," Lyons Mayor Julie Van Domelen told the Legislature's flood disaster study committee, which visited Lyons, Longmont and Estes Park on Monday. "And that includes reserves we're not allowed to spend."

"We will come back," town administrator Victoria Simonsen said to the legislators. "But we're going to need some help."

It's not an unusual request. Two months after the St. Vrain River flooded, with rebuilding under way and invoices coming in, several communities have told the committee they need to see quick reimbursements from Denver and Washington to avoid cash flow problems.

In Longmont's case, the city put off other capital projects, tapped its own reserves -- recently strengthened to help an ongoing budget "reset" -- and raised stormwater and park maintenance fees to make sure it could pay the bills up front and be reimbursed later. But even there, if "later" comes too much later, the city could have problems.

"My concern is that other people won't do their part," Longmont Councilman Brian Bagley told the committee.

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What's more, city manager Harold Dominguez pointed out, the clock is ticking because of the granular debris in the reservoirs and the St. Vrain River channel.

"It's reduced the ability of the channel to carry water," Dominguez said. "Come the spring runoff, we may have another disaster on our hands if we don't get that granular debris removed."

Longmont initially estimated the flood caused infrastructure damage of $148 million. That number is currently down to about $132 million but is still fluid, Dominguez said, going up as new damage is uncovered or down when a better-than-expected bid comes in.

The number includes about $20.1 million of damage to the parks and $88.9 million of storm drainage expenses.

"Has there been a decision made, whether to make sure the river goes back to its original channel or if it should stay in its new channel?" asked Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling.

Not yet, Longmont officials responded. A short-term fix is planned to keep people and property safe in the spring, but a longer-term plan is still being worked out among all the players, including the ditch companies.

"I'm not sure what the answer is," Sonnenberg acknowledged, "but if there's something we need to do to help speed up the process, please let us know."

Simonsen said Lyons needs to see a plan quickly, too. At one point, she said, the town lost a month dealing with the state's "Stream Team" before learning that the body was responsible for big-picture approaches rather than making recommendations for a particular river.

"Between December and March, the stream needs to have banks again, and we need to know who's going to do that," she said.

In Longmont, St. Vrain activist Michael Schnatzmeyer argued that the river's new channel was actually its original course reasserting itself.

With a $50 million investment, he said, the area could turn the St. Vrain from a $250 million threat to a $250 million asset, but not if communities insisted on pushing the water where it didn't want to go.

"If we return the river to where we think its flow should be ... we're basically saying we had so much fun with this flood, let's do it again," he told the committee.

On the financial end, suggestions were not short in coming.

Boulder County Commissioner Deb Gardner asked that counties be allowed to reinforce their road and bridge money with general fund dollars during the recovery, something currently barred by state law.

Lyons officials asked if loans or grants could be available to further help the town; between the floods and the evacuations, Van Domelen and Simonsen said, local property and sales taxes were crippled and the parks that usually brought so much money to Lyons had been turned to rubble.

Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, suggested that perhaps a zero-interest loan program could be created to help with flood costs.

"I didn't understand what the word 'staggering' meant until I came here," Singer told the other committee members, who had just watched images of the devastation at Lyons Elementary School, the temporary town hall.

The committee's co-chair, Rep. David Young, D-Greeley, said the committee would also consider what steps need to be taken to be ready for the next disaster.

"The state of Colorado cannot prevent an act of nature of this magnitude from happening again," he said. "But just as we prepare for the next wildfire, so we can be prepared for the next event nature may have in store for us."

Scott Rochat can be reached at 303-684-5220 or srochat@times-call.com.

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